


Through the clown mask

by borntoshine



Series: Yullentide2019 [1]
Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Canon Universe, Emotional Baggage, Gen, I love them too much, Kanda is a dick by choice, M/M, Multi, Yullen Week 2019, Yullentide2019, they're always broken somehow, yullentide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:00:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21864865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/borntoshine/pseuds/borntoshine
Summary: Yullentide 2019Prompt word:Amelioration » The act of relieving ills and changing for the better----Since their very first encounter, Allen has used a different language and attitude toward Kanda in response to his aggressive behaviour. Now, Kanda knows all – or at least most of – about Allen’s past and he’s feeling conflicted. Somehow, his goal now seems to be to bring back the sleeping child Allen has closed somewhere deep inside himself, to deteriorate the fake mask of politeness and unwavering smile the boy gifts anyone they meet along their journey.So Kanda keeps him on edge, he instigates, they fight, and with time passing by, Allen somehow manages to handle the bitterness and aggressivity that Red has always had toward life. Because he didn’t deserve everything that happened to him, nor Red, nor Allen.And Kanda knows it.
Relationships: Kanda Yuu & Allen Walker, Kanda Yuu/Allen Walker
Series: Yullentide2019 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1575193
Comments: 6
Kudos: 71





	Through the clown mask

It’s in witty responses and instinctive actions that Kanda sees the opening of that selfless mask of behaviour Allen carries around. Those small cracks he has always noticed, since the very first time they met.

When it comes to deal with Kanda, Allen has always used a different language, a different attitude, as if the edges of his persona would sharpen and prepare for an attack or at times for defence, and that only kept tempting Kanda to probe him with – at times idiotic – small challenges, venomous words, punches and threats. It’s never been a mystery to any of their comrades how their relationship was shaped. Somehow, instead of provoking him into taking distance, he had worked his way around the boy to drag him around and closer, not that Kanda ever really took care to notice of that, though.

But now, after weeks spent travelling with Allen toward this unknown destination he agreed to search with him after hearing his true story, each and every bits of that off behaviour is plain as bright light. The story of his past narrated by the boy had had Kanda thinking a lot – probably for lack of any other interesting topic to keep his mind busy with, or even for simple natural attachment he had matured over time, after all – and he concluded that those are the hints of what Allen’s personality must have been before _Allen_ really begun, as the other himself stated. The idea of the enormous weight of his past makes Kanda uneasy even if he knows everyone carries a baggage of painful memories in their past – he himself, for one, has a crazy and traumatic past that now he has shared with the younger, even against his will – but what’s in Allen’s past is beyond rational understanding. Sometimes he wonders how the boy is still mentally sane at this state.

The way he carries forward following his made-up purpose of being _a destroyer that saves_ others is truly unthinkable for Kanda. Allen is compassionate, kind, and gets attached to anything that stands in front of his eyes. That’s what brought him to danger many times during missions, and Kanda has since Mater wondered what to make of that knowledge. Back then, when Allen has waited for three full days for the doll to stop singing and grant her wish, his insides did clench at the exhaustion written on the other’s face while he stood by far, observing him cry for the emotions that shouldn’t have been his, but of others. That, probably, was the first time since the day he resurfaced from the rests of the Asia lab where he was re-born, that his chest ached for emotions, filled with a warmth he wasn’t sure it was welcome. Of course, that infuriated him and only darkened his mood further.

Watching Allen now, though, he stills sees all those things in the boy, but the shadows in his clear eyes are deeper. When he catches him spacing off, his eyes look bottomless to the point that the first time Kanda almost got worried – he did get worried, but he reacted by shoving Allen to a side and bring him back to reality. It happens a lot, Allen drifts off lost in his thought, seeing who knows what in his head, and every time he’s called back to present his features are sharper, his tongue lose. Kanda takes advantage of those moments to stir that personality he knows he has inside, and even if at times he does sound or act even nastier than he really wants, it always grants him rewards.

There’s no time to lose patching up a clown mask. He repeats that to Allen often, in different words – sure –, especially when he can’t get why Kanda bites on him out of nowhere, and Kanda hopes he does understand soon or later what he really means. Voicing that would be too hard, almost embarrassing. With everything that’s happening, with a Noah trying to get control of his consciousness, Aprocryphos being a constant danger that keeps Allen on an alert full time, and Akumas following them anywhere, the younger must not make time to think of others. The more he gets attached to singular happenings, the less he can perceive danger around himself, and Kanda wants him to learn to be egoist again. He knows Allen does it without truly being aware of it, he knows it’s his way to keep the mind occupied and run from the nightmares he lives in the daily light, but Kanda wants Allen to take care of himself without halting at every single person’s need they meet on their path and reach the truth he’s seeking for still being himself and in full one piece.

Travelling along him is not hard. Allen is not a bad companion, though he’s more silent than Kanda remembers. They both get what comes when it’s about a place where to sleep or food to fill their stomachs with. Allen has not had a single complaint so far, and Kanda does make them for him. Kanda would complain about the beds, the water to wash with, the food, or anything that he can point out to. He even made comments on Allen smelling bad once, when he couldn’t find anything else to pick. That bloomed to a good night of fight, and that night Allen slept longer than usual.

Every time they fight, Kanda fights hard. He gets serious, tires the boy out as much as he tires himself, and when that happens, he always sees more and more of what Allen has inside. The fact that the nightmares Allen usually wakes up with, struggling to breathe during the night, gets fewer after they fight it’s just a positive perk that comes with the experience. There’s a pattern by now, and Kanda is sure in no way Allen wouldn’t have noticed it. The latest days he was on alert as to anticipate complaints or a harsh word. The latest days they always ended up fighting, and Allen doesn’t have dark bags under his eyes like before. They’re lighter.

Now that they are getting the last room left at a small village hotel they found themselves reaching by night, Kanda’s mouth is already foul and snappy. Only one bed for two people is something completely inadmissible – even though it did happen twice already that they had to share a bed, and all worked out well.

“What the hell is your problem now? We already did this, idiot,” Allen said shaking his head with an eye roll when he closed the door. The room was cosy and warm in the cold winter, and the bed was spacious enough for two people to fit in and have a good sleep; even the bathroom looked nice from a general glance.

“That doesn’t mean I want to share a bed with you, Moyashi. Or with anyone, for instance. You sleep on the floor.” Kanda has no middle measures. It’s either black or white, and that day is one of those days he doesn’t want to see shades. He hears Allen click his tongue behind him, but after a pause, he mutters an agreement. Kanda feels a shiver run down his spine.

He wasn’t supposed to accept. Allen was supposed to talk back in the same way, giving Kanda the floor or putting up a fight for that. Not that easy huff and positive feedback. That wasn’t planned at all. So when he turns toward the younger, the surprise must show on his face, and Allen shakes his shoulders, unlacing his coat. “I’m starved and tired, all I want is for you to shut up and sleep. I don’t care where.”

Kanda doesn’t answer; he just observes as Allen hangs his clothes on the wall and makes it for the bathroom with his bag, closing the door behind him.

In the past, Kanda wouldn’t have cared. He would have left the boy sleep on the hard floor and don’t give a damn, but now it was different. Now he didn’t intend for that, nor wanted him to risk getting sick and be even closer to danger. And surely, he didn’t want nightmares to shake the whole room in the night. The nice pattern he had managed to create in the last weeks was now broken, and maybe he put a bit too much effort into making the path. It must be actually exhausting to deal with someone continuously picking on whatever doesn’t go according to their fantasies. Kanda would kill for much less.

Stripping off his own clothes, Kanda waits for the other to free the bath so he can wash and clear his head a bit. He’s overthinking, and he doesn’t like it when it happens. Overthinking does bring people to make mistakes, and he can’t afford mistakes with Allen. On top of that, Allen has been even more silent than usual that day, he did look tired and their meal wasn’t enough to satisfy his hunger, and even if he’s not hungry most of the time he’s still a parasitic type that needs much more food than an average male his age, so his body does suffer from his inappetence

When finally reemerged from the bathroom, Allen has damp hair and is wearing the usual white long shirt he uses for the night. It’s very pale and the clear colours make him look like a ghost if it wasn’t for the crimson scar on his face. Kanda lets his mind wander for a second if it’s soft to the touch or has a rough texture like the skin of his left his arm.

“Get to bed and sleep, you look like a corpse,” Kanda says swiftly, and their shoulders brush as he gets to the bathroom. The warm water helps to melt some knotted muscle and nerve but somehow he can’t relax. His hair is pinned on top of his head to make sure it doesn’t get wet because he would have no patience to wash and dry them that night, so he lingers a bit longer washing up. The sponge given from the hotel is a nice one, reminds him of the Order’s.

Overthinking. He keeps overthinking, and there’s something really wrong in all that. It must be the fact that he too is tired. Kanda wants to convince himself, so he dries his body off and unlaces his hair. Any idea he’s been trying to plan to pick a fight once back in the room gets dismissed as he exits the bathroom, and he only wants to lie down and sleep, now.

But when he steps in the room, all the blood swirls to his head and he has to brace himself not to let his frustration boost a scream. Allen is lying on the floor, has taken a pillow and a blanket from the bed, and has made himself some kind of nest. Kanda can see his vest underneath, which before was hung to the wall and now separates his body from the cold floor.

“Are you actually stupid or what?” Kanda spats, his leg moves before he realises as he kicks the boy under the blanket – even if it’s not a hard kick. Allen sits up with a frown and there’s something Kanda can only recognise as anger on his face.

“What the hell is your problem now? Did I pick the wrong piece of floor to sleep on?”  
Allen's eyes are flaming, his cheeks dusted with pink and he has lost the filter to his words. His tone is harsh, direct and high. Kanda is surprised again. Should he keep the fight on, or should he let it go?

“I told you to get to the BED, not to make yourself a bed!”

“You said I got the floor, so I MADE my bed! Make up your damn mind, Kanda!”

Allen is angry. But he’s so obviously not really mad at him it almost hurts. He rather has Allen really mad, than directing his own frustration toward him this way. Something must have happened – in his head, most probably – and he doesn’t know what it is.  
“Get to the bed,” he says then, staring at him in the eyes. “Now.”

Allen bites his lips and gets even more colour on his cheeks. There’s something in the way his hands grip the blanket that’s making Kanda both proud and uneasy at the same time of his performance and all of sudden he wants to _know_. He wants to understand what’s going through Allen’s mind that’s making him so mad.

“The hell with you. I’m done with your bullshit, go sleep or die in the slums I don’t care. Leave me alone.”  
And with that said, Allen lies down again on the floor and gets the blanket up to his head, hiding his frame completely. Kanda has the wild instinct to rip the blanket off him but refrains himself.

He gets to the bed, sits on it and stares at the form on the floor. From there, Allen gives him his back, and it’s still fully covered. His shoulders are shaking, though, and Kanda is not sure he wants to know it’s cries or cold shivers shaking them. Time to sleep it off, he orders to his tired brain.  
Overthinking gives him headaches.

Over an hour later, Kanda is still awake. The bed is comfortable – truly – and it’s warm, but he keeps staring at the ceiling and has all his senses tense to catch on any noise, any movement from Allen on the floor. He’s not sure the boy is sleeping, but his breath is stable, calm and deep as if he is. Then he’s sneezing. One, two, three times. The longer it goes, the more often Allen sneezes and Kanda can’t bear that anymore.

He’s tired as well, he wants to sleep, and he keeps overthinking. What was off with Allen that night? What made him so unsettled that frustration was turned into anger? His eyes were not filled with sorrow for once, they were shining and liquid, and Kanda has the awful sensation that he had been crying under the blankets, after all. He gets up and with two large steps reaches the handmade bed, kneeling one leg to touch his shoulder. He’s not too warm, and under his feet, the floor is cold stone.

“C’mon Moyashi. Get up,” he murmurs, opening the blanket and shaking the other awake. Allen startles, his head whips around to look at Kanda with a sucked in a breath and is honestly only by chance that Kanda manages to block Allen’s innocence before it hits him. “It’s me. Calm down.”

“What is _WRONG_ with you?!”

Allen grabs him on his shoulder by his vest and shakes him. His question is sharp, but his voice is broken, rasp with sleep. It almost sounds like a plea. Kanda faces him with his most stoic expression and seizes his strength to force him up on his feet. Allen lets him – not without trying to resist at first – and doesn’t release the hold on his cloth, still looking at Kanda straight in the face as if waiting for an answer. Kanda isn’t going to give him one.

After being pushed in the bed, Allen rolls on his side right away to make to reach the very edge of it. The bed is large enough for them to sleep both on their backs, but it’s evident Allen doesn’t want to be any close to him if he can decide.

“Stop being a moron. I couldn’t sleep with you sneezing every ten seconds,” Kanda says, eventually. He lies down next to him, brings the blanket up to his chest and goes back to stare at the ceiling, but this time seems like Allen has an answer ready for him. “Oh well, thanks for the care. Not my choice to sleep down on the floor—”

“I _told_ you to get to the bed before. You didn’t.”

“You tell me a lot of things, Kanda. And most of those are losing sense, so either you’re going crazy or you should really think of letting me go alone—”

“Stop that,” Kanda holds a hand up, right to his face, but doesn’t touch him. He can feel Allen’s warm breath on his palm. “That’s already been discussed. You’re going nowhere alone.”

Allen stays silent, and Kanda lowers his hand slowly. He’s still staring at Kanda, eyes locked as if he’s searching some kind of truth.

“You’re getting on my nerves on purpose since days,” Allen says then, and any hint of anger has instantly disappeared. There’s a weird shade of sadness on his face, tired eyes going dark again and Kanda hates it.

“Why would I.” He’s not ready to give in. Kanda doesn’t want some kind of understanding if it’s going to trash all his achievement.

“You tell me. It’s being hard sharing any space with you lately” Allen _does_ sound upset, and Kanda can’t help but get alarmed but chooses to stay silent and listen because the other seems ready to say more. “I was happy to be with you. I was happy not to be alone, but right now I wish I were. I don’t understand why you’re making every day more difficult Kanda. Do you really hate me that much?”

That hurt. Of all the things Kanda was expecting, that wasn’t the one he thought he would hear. Hate him? That was past due, Allen should know it. Kanda has never really hated Allen. But the fact that he’s getting heavy on the other, to the point of bringing him to those thoughts, he didn’t realize. Sure, he’s aware of his pushes, of his every and each complaint, of every fight. But to have Allen even think this?

“Moron,” Kanda says again. He can’t come up with anything better to prop any answer, and he knows he has to give him one but isn’t sure how to. Before Allen can speak again, though, he chuckles darkly and instinctively.

“I don’t hate you, Moyashi,” he says and takes a deep breath while a hand runs on his face, massaging his temples tiredly. “I don’t either enjoy fight every day, but it’s the only way to have you freaking react as you should to things around you. Don’t you see it yourself?”

There is just silence that follows. Only when Kanda turns his head to look at Allen, the boy blinks perplexed. “How… what? It doesn’t make sense—”

“What does make sense to you? Should I say it more easily?” Kanda snaps with an eye-roll. “Well, you could try,” is the immediate retort Allen shots. But there’s something else than anger in his voice, and when he sees him grin faintly, he understands that now the boy is almost humoured. Sure his mood swings are fast. Kanda hopes it is because he understood that his real motifs are laced with worry and care.

“I lied. I do hate part of you. Your stupid fake smile, for example. Your shitty-humble behaviour. When will you start to think about yourself, first?” Kanda says, sitting up now. He’s too restless to lie down like a fish, he feels trapped, and it’s getting suffocating. Kanda doesn’t deal well with emotions, and there’s a turmoil he doesn’t much appreciate in his chest.

Allen follows him up, sits next to him and stares at the wall on the other end of the room with a contemplative face.“You said that before. My clown face, right? That gives on your nerves…”

“Correct.”

Allen nods, knees now at his chest as he hugs them. Slowly he rests his chin on them and hums, probably choosing the words to use next.

“Everything is so hard, you know,” he starts slowly, his voice is very low and unsure, and his eyes do not move from the wall opposite to them. “Even breathing sometimes is hard, and I wonder… is it me? Or is Nea? What is it true of my memories, and what is not mine?”

A pause.

“But when I met Mana, I shaped myself on him, and it’s all I have left of that person now. Of my past with him. Those are the most precious memories I own, and I can’t be sure they are genuine. I don’t even know if those are real. And… it terrifies me.”

Kanda stares at him, silent. Allen smiles while saying those things, and _that_ clown smile. A sad one.

“I get that, but since this is what’s happening right now, you can’t just hold on that. You need to hold on what’s truly yourself, keep heading forward as you so often say. Think about yourself only.” Kanda's eyes are so focused on him; he won’t be surprised if holes start to crave themselves on Allen’s face. “Stopping on the tracks right now is dangerous, Moyashi.”

At that, Allen finally turns his head toward him, and his eyes are liquid again. They’re wide, clear as snow and lost in a way Kanda haven’t seen ever before that moment. “I don’t know who I am anymore, I can’t rely on myself. I can’t do that, Kanda.”

Silence fills the space once again, but this time they’re looking at each other, and for once it’s not a staring competition. Kanda is trying to elaborate something to say, trying to read on the boy’s face what is it that he’s really feeling deep down. He’s scared, and that it’s obvious. But before he can move his tongue, Allen smiles sadly again and shakes his head, knees pressed tighter against his chest.

“I get what you’re trying to do, in your rude and animalistic way, you know,” he chuckles darkly, goes back to look somewhere else, fixing his eyes in the empty. “But it’s no use. There’s nothing to break free from here. I like what I learnt to do with my emotions. It’s the only thing I can control and forge them in kindness toward those who I don’t even know the names who we meet along, being able to help others somehow, it keeps me sane. I’m still good. I still have hope.”

“So, do you mean that this clown you make of yourself in public is the only thing that you still trust to be you?” Kanda asks sharply. He couldn’t filter his words; his tongue formed them before he agreed to it. It’s a strange pull to his chest to hear the question out loud, even more, to hear Allen broken chuckle while he nods.

Then Kanda understands. Somehow, it gets so obvious he blames his own stupidity. Not everyone has to act with anger and cynical approach when facing life. Allen had to do that when he was a kid, only to be able to survive. What he became later, holding on the hope his adoptive father managed to give him, even with his madness embracing Allen’s growth, is what Allen want’s to keep as armour to fill his purpose and get strength from. Kanda doesn’t need to break it. He doesn’t need to make Allen angry at the world again.

“Then hold on me, Moyashi.”

Once again, Kanda speaks before thinking. But this is probably the most genuine thing he’s ever said to Allen in the weeks spent travelling together. Maybe, the most heartfelt thing he ever said, because he can’t fool himself. He decided to dive back head first in this nightmare only for the sake of this boy sitting next to him, holding himself like a lost kid that so much reminds Kanda of his former self. So much reminds him of Alma. This need, deep and sincere, to protect someone, to support someone, is something he thought he couldn’t feel anymore.

Allen is looking at him surprised now. His lips are parted, eyes searching but his features aren’t tense anymore, so Kanda swallow the knot he’s felt forming in his throat and keeps going. “You’re trusting me with your past. We share a fair amount of secrets already, so… rely on me. I have enough anger and rudeness for both of us. I have no other purpose.”

Maybe it was too much to say, Kanda, bites his tongue at that. Since when he’s got so talkative? Since when he can’t filter his own emotions from what he brings out to the open? It feels like he’s not able to hide anything in Allen’s face anymore. Not when the younger looks at him with such eyes, not when the sorrow and the pain can’t be seen in them.

Allen stares at him with wide eyes, startled for sure, and his cheeks are once again dusted with pink. But this time is not anger. Kanda doesn’t recall ever saying something so emotional, and when he feels his face heat up in his internal fluster, he clicks his tongue and turns his head to the opposite side.

“Tsk, don’t make me repeat this shit ever again, Moyashi. I’ll cut you down.”

The silence that follows feels like gratitude, and Kanda won’t mention their discussion ever again. He’ll probably bring this down to his own grave, but he knows that what he said, each word and its implications, were all Allen needed from him. And maybe, that’s what Kanda was needing all along.

**Author's Note:**

> When I write Yullen I barely have an idea where the story I start to write ends up. They just go by themselves, so you're never allowed to blame me for anything. I swear is true.
> 
> Amelioration was truly hard to figure out and Kanda is pretty hard to keep in character. Plus, I have no DGM fan friend who could beta me, so let me know if you notice anything off!  
> I hope you liked!


End file.
